10 replies so far

Hi John, You can make your own very easily. Get a straight board and use the router (or saw) to cut a 1/4” (or bigger if needed for large frames) groove in the middle of it. Cut the board into 8 pieces at 45 degree angle and glue them together to make 4 right angle pieces with the groove on the outside. You can use a rope of anything that would tighten the rope or strap (if you used a dado on the back of the board) to tighten the frame joints. I’ve seen the small straps they used for fastening things in the RV section of WalMart.

Blue or green masking tape… The real brand name stuff, not the cheap stuff…

Not kidding.

- Lay the parts out inside face down- Tape them tightly edge to edge, leave a strip on one open end.- Flip so the inside edge is up and miters are open- Apply glue to all miter faces- Wrap it up, stretch last strip around corner. - Apply another strip all the way around

I’ve only ever used Ulmia spring clamps and pinch dogs. If I can’t hide the point mark in a bit of detail, I rub/ glue a pad and plane it off after. The other side of the spreader opens the smaller clamp.

I use tape, but not blue tape as it doesn’t stick as well for me as regular masking tape. A properly cut miter doesn’t require super pressure for a good glue bond. The downside is that you have to be careful to make sure your frame is square before you leave it to dry. I also use just tape on all my mitered boxes and I have yet to have a joint on one of these to fail.

I like the way that Tommy MacDonald does it on his show – he glues on 45 degree pieces of pine on the outside of each piece, lets them dry and them clamps across those. Works great. Pretty quick after to take them down with a chisel and plane.